Ok,
It seems that the version of sqlite shipped with Python versions 2.5
to 3.0 for Windows has been compiled in a way as to not include what
the sqlite guys call the ICU extension. The ICU is a little extension
that links sqlite with the ICU library (installed separately), thus
allowing it to provide lower and upper case functions for the full
range of unicode characters, a unicode aware LIKE operator and ICU
collation sequences.
The readme file for ICU is here
http://www.sqlite.org/cvstrac/fileview?f=sqlite/ext/icu/README.txt
I have spent many days now trying to get a windows binary
(sqlite3.dll) with the icu extensions. There are instructions on how
to do this here
http://devmentor.org/articles/sqlite/sqlite.html but
they require ms visual studio. The open source alternative, using
mingw or cygwin, crashes somewhere half way through the compilation of
the ICU library itself (not the extension). If anybody wants to take
on the task of compiling ICU and sqlite with inrenational support and
make the dll available I would be grateful (and many other people
too.) and I would be willing to help maintain the distro and perhaps
host it.
If on the other hand all you want is international support in a web2py
project that runs off a usb stick (as I do) then you can install
SQLite Developer from
http://www.sqlitedeveloper.com/. The installer
will also add a series of sqlite* and icu* related dlls. Simply
copying those over your web2py ones will do the trick (you get full
uncode sorting and like support etc.)
Warning! Should you wish to do so please a) make sure that you make a
backup of your web2py installation and b) you also copy the
Microsoft.VC80.CRT.manifest and msvcr80.dll files.
I haven't tried to get this done on linux or the mac, since I need to
ship a windows usb stick for this particular app. I have reasons to
believe though that building sqlite with ICU is much easier on a
decent linux distro and should be relatively easy on the mac with fink
and gcc.